A couple years ago I gave up on store bought bread and started making my own because I wanted something I liked and didn’t cost a small fortune. I found a recipe that worked for me and over time I refined it until I had something that was just about perfect. Of course, I can’t leave well enough alone, so I tried an experiment: Bacon bread. Oh, yes.

When I was a kid, my dad always said, “Close your window. We aren’t heating the outdoors,” and “Don’t use the air conditioner in the car. Just roll down your window.” But the line that put me over the top was, “Don’t use the fan when you’re in the shower. You’re letting all the heat out.”

The nieces wanted to make paper snowflake holiday ornaments, so I broke out my slightly rusty hand crafting skills and we got busy. When I shared a photo of one of our finished ornaments n Twitter, er Instagram, I was surprised at how many people wanted to know how to make their own. No problem, gang; I’m happy to share.

I have a hypersensitive sense of smell, which means I can smell a lot more than the average person, and most aromas are like “smell concentrate” for me. That’s a really big problem, especially when I’m in public and people are wearing perfume. In fact, the perfume thing is so bad that I sometimes have to leave stores and restaurants because of the smell — and I bet I’m not alone.